While medical ultrasound images can be quickly and cheaply obtained from a handheld ultrasound imaging device, this type of imaging generally suffers from a lack of accurate information concerning the conditions under which the scan was captured. As a result, two-dimensional ultrasound images from handheld probes are generally limited in use to a qualitative evaluation of the imaged tissue.
There remains a need for tools and techniques to return an ultrasound imaging device to a previous or otherwise predetermined acquisition state that includes, e.g., a position, an orientation, a rotation and/or an instantaneous contact force.